Many SV startups are using AI to boost productivity in research, coding, and more, reducing reliance on VC money for hiring, fueling "tiny team" success stories (Erin Griffith/New York Times)

Erin Griffith / New York Times:
Many SV startups are using AI to boost productivity in research, coding, and more, reducing reliance on VC money for hiring, fueling “tiny team” success stories  —  Tech start-ups typically raised huge sums to hire armies of workers and grow fast.

DeepSeek will start open-sourcing five code repositories next week, letting anyone download, build on, or improve the code behind its well-regarded AI models (Saritha Rai/Bloomberg)

Saritha Rai / Bloomberg:
DeepSeek will start open-sourcing five code repositories next week, letting anyone download, build on, or improve the code behind its well-regarded AI models  —  - The startup will begin making technology available next week  — DeepSeek is pushing harder on its open-source approach

Sensor Tower: Xiaohongshu's downloads fell 91% in five days after Apple and Google relisted TikTok on their US app stores on February 13, while TikTok's doubled (Vlad Savov/Bloomberg)

Vlad Savov / Bloomberg:
Sensor Tower: Xiaohongshu's downloads fell 91% in five days after Apple and Google relisted TikTok on their US app stores on February 13, while TikTok's doubled  —  - TikTok absence from app stores estimated to cost $142 million  — Rednote emerged as the go-to TikTok replacement in January

OpenAI launches Operator in the UK, Japan, and most ChatGPT regions, and says it's working to expand to the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
OpenAI launches Operator in the UK, Japan, and most ChatGPT regions, and says it's working to expand to the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, and Iceland  —  OpenAI said on Friday that it is rolling out Operator, its so-called AI agent that can perform tasks on behalf of users …

Russian search and ad giant Yandex reports 2024 revenue up 37% YoY to a record ~$12.3B and expects 2025 revenue up 30%+, after splitting from Nebius Group (Reuters)

Reuters:
Russian search and ad giant Yandex reports 2024 revenue up 37% YoY to a record ~$12.3B and expects 2025 revenue up 30%+, after splitting from Nebius Group  —  Russian internet firm Yandex reported annual revenues above 1 trillion roubles ($11.22 billion) for the first time on Thursday …

Australia eSafety Commissioner study: social media platforms likely have ~1.3M under-13 Australian users, suggesting a lack of preparation for the under-16 ban (Angus Whitley/Bloomberg)

Angus Whitley / Bloomberg:
Australia eSafety Commissioner study: social media platforms likely have ~1.3M under-13 Australian users, suggesting a lack of preparation for the under-16 ban  —  - Study indicates over 1 million underage social media users  — Findings show lack of preparation for Australia's under-16 ban

An interview with Accel's Harry Nelis, who led early investments in Zepz and Kayak, on how the European startup industry has changed, the AI boom, and more (Tim Bradshaw/Financial Times)

Tim Bradshaw / Financial Times:
An interview with Accel's Harry Nelis, who led early investments in Zepz and Kayak, on how the European startup industry has changed, the AI boom, and more  —  The venture capital group's long-serving partner reflects on how the continent's start-up industry has evolved and discusses the AI boom

Signal updates its apps to add phishing protections after Google warned Russia-linked hackers are using fake QR codes to target Ukrainian soldiers (Andy Greenberg/Wired)

Andy Greenberg / Wired:
Signal updates its apps to add phishing protections after Google warned Russia-linked hackers are using fake QR codes to target Ukrainian soldiers  —  Google warns that hackers tied to Russia are tricking Ukrainian soldiers with fake QR codes for Signal group invites that let spies steal their messages.

Source: in text messages, Libra co-creator Hayden Davis bragged he could "control" Argentine President Javier Milei due to payments to Milei's sister (Danny Nelson/CoinDesk)

Danny Nelson / CoinDesk:
Source: in text messages, Libra co-creator Hayden Davis bragged he could “control” Argentine President Javier Milei due to payments to Milei's sister  —  A key player behind the Libra token bragged about buying access to Argentine President Javier Milei's inner circle months …

A look at Apple's quiet pivot to India, where Foxconn now makes the iPhone 16 Pro; sources say China views Apple's growing business in India with suspicion (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
A look at Apple's quiet pivot to India, where Foxconn now makes the iPhone 16 Pro; sources say China views Apple's growing business in India with suspicion  —  As Donald Trump was preparing to take office for the first time in 2017, Priyank Kharge was busy making calls to Apple's headquarters in Cupertino …

X raises its Premium+ subscription to $40 per month, or $395 per year, after raising it to $22 per month in December 2024, following Grok3's launch (Ivan Mehta/TechCrunch)

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:
X raises its Premium+ subscription to $40 per month, or $395 per year, after raising it to $22 per month in December 2024, following Grok3's launch  —  Hours after Elon Musk's AI company, xAI released the latest version of its AI model, Grok 3, X has significantly hiked the price …

Baidu reports Q4 revenue down 2% YoY to ~$4.7B, above $4.6B est., and a ~$717M net income, above ~$540M est., as its search and AI businesses face competition (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
Baidu reports Q4 revenue down 2% YoY to ~$4.7B, above $4.6B est., and a ~$717M net income, above ~$540M est., as its search and AI businesses face competition  —  Revenue for the three months ended December shrank 2% to 34.1 billion yuan ($4.7 billion), versus an average estimate of 33.4 billion yuan.

An analysis of credit and debit card data shows TikTok Shop passed Shein and Temu in US sales in January 2025, growing 153% to Shein's 26% and Temu's 28% (Bloomberg)

Bloomberg:
An analysis of credit and debit card data shows TikTok Shop passed Shein and Temu in US sales in January 2025, growing 153% to Shein's 26% and Temu's 28%  —  The popular video app, which brought in-app shopping to its millions of American users in 2023, continued to surpass Shein …

Sources: Wall Street banks led by Morgan Stanley have offloaded almost all of Elon Musk's $12.5B in loans used to buy Twitter, and now hold $1B+ in X debt (Financial Times)

Financial Times:
Sources: Wall Street banks led by Morgan Stanley have offloaded almost all of Elon Musk's $12.5B in loans used to buy Twitter, and now hold $1B+ in X debt  —  Investor perception of debt has changed since Donald Trump's election victory  —  Wall Street banks have rid themselves of almost …

New junior developers are reliant on Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools, meaning foundational coding knowledge is now missing, creating problems down the road (Namanyay Goel/N's Blog)

Namanyay Goel / N's Blog:
New junior developers are reliant on Copilot, Claude, and other AI tools, meaning foundational coding knowledge is now missing, creating problems down the road  —  100k+ views 70+ votes 50+ votes  —  Something's been bugging me about how new devs and I need to talk about it.